I was honored to sponsor Delanie Williams at her admission ceremony before the Tennessee Supreme Court in Knoxville last month.

Judge Brian Addington

I’ve known Delanie’s grandmother for years, so it was a pleasure to have Delanie intern for the court in the Gray office in 2021. During her time here, she learned about our processes, performed legal research, wrote blog articles and created a spreadsheet that allows a user to quickly determine whether an injured worker is entitled to the multiplier that attaches when someone lives in a high unemployment county.

Delanie graduated from Belmont University College of Law this May and took the bar this summer. She found a job after the bar exam at Clemson University and moved to Greenville, S.C. She will be working in the office that reviews nondisclosure agreements.

She is one of many law students who’ve interned with the Tennessee Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims and Appeals Board over the years across the state. We’re always open to help teach the next generation of lawyers and have found it very rewarding. (So, any aspiring comp attorneys in law school, feel free to contact us about an opportunity.)

Back to the swearing-in: The ceremony was casual, and the members of the Tennessee Supreme Court were very welcoming and wished all the new attorneys well in their future endeavors. After introducing Delanie, I realized that I went through the same swearing-in ceremony 30 years ago. My sponsor was professor Dean Rivkin from University of Tennessee Law.

As fun as the ceremony was, it ended with a serious oath of admission, which reads: “I, __________, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Tennessee. In the practice of my profession, I will conduct myself with honesty, fairness, integrity and civility to the best of my skill and abilities, so help me God.”

As I observed Delanie and attorneys being sworn in, I realized that some of them might one day appear before me. My thoughts and hopes were that they would do well and represent the legal profession in a worthy way.

Congratulations to Delanie and all those admitted to the bar.

Brian Addington is a judge in the Tennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims, Gray. This entry is republished with permission from the court's blog.